I think, DB2 stores data in LDS ( One of the VSAM dataset types) and not in ESDS.

As per a very crude definition of databse(given by C.J. Date, an author and researcher at IBM), "Database systems OR DBMS are simply an electronic record keeping system" , so, looking at this very high level definition, I would go ahead and say that VSAM is a DBMS .
DBMS - Database management system.
Yes, I think it allows data to be managed isn't it?

But, here is a catch, VSAM is not a RDBMS. It doesn't follow most of the Codd's golden rules.

I would say, VSAM is a core component of operating system MVS which has an interface in userland through a utility program called IDCAMS.

hi rischith,
We have a tool in our shop (BMC viewer), to know about the meta data and physical data locations of the Database objects. IN that i take a Db, and inturn Table spaces of it, then i find the Dataset which holds the data for it....using the options provided.....

IF you have any such tools to see the table details, database details then u can try with the options provided, Then u would come to KNow...

VSAM is not at all a Database. However it give freedon to manage the data and use it's own storage area to manipulate it accordingly, but it never has the relativity feature i.e. you can not link it with any other Table/File and can not have relations as what we can have in DBMS with Primary and Foreign keys.

Thus VSAM is a File, however we many of the times say it Table for our convenience.

hi rischith,
We have a tool in our shop (BMC viewer), to know about the meta data and physical data locations of the Database objects. IN that i take a Db, and inturn Table spaces of it, then i find the Dataset which holds the data for it....using the options provided.....

IF you have any such tools to see the table details, database details then u can try with the options provided, Then u would come to KNow...